HISTORY OF MANTOVA
The legend wants that
Mantova had been founded from a Greek fortune teller, Mantle, escaped from
Tebe in the
Beozia, in order not to submit to the oblique
Creonte tyrant. Probably the first village rose in the 2000 a.C. in the lake that the
Mincio in that zone formed. The true and own city development with the Etruscans during VI sec a.C., taking its name from the Etruscan divinity Mantus later on confused from the Roman with Mantle, the Greek fortune teller. During the roman empire it never did not become a healthy centre and important even if gave to the NATO them to one of the more important poets of the classic literature,
Virgilio. After its fall,
Mantova endured invasions from part of the Barbarians and passed under various dominations between which that gothic,
bizantina ,
longobarda until when around to the end of the X sec d.C. it passed to the
Canossa until to 1150, year in which Moors the last heir of the family,
Matilde. From here common
Mantova became an independent one trying to maintain own independence from the empire. During the crashes between Guelphs and Ghibellines,
Mantova, by now weakened, passed to the
Bonacolsi and of it was straight for a short period between 1273 and il1328. In this year, after the killing of the last
Bonacolsi, due to one turned local, the
Gonzaga became dukes of
Mantova. Along all the course of umanism and then for the all the Renaissance city became a most important cultural centre arriving before with
Ludovico II, that it made to arrive in city artists of highest level which
Donatello,
Leon Battista Alberti and
Andrea Mantenga, and then with
Isabella d' Este, wife of
Francisco II Gonzaga, to its maximum cultural splendor, economic and political, thanks also to its territorial expansion, with the annexation of the
Monferrato. From this period in then the lordship I begin its sunset with the breach of the descent line and I besiege of the city in the 1630 from part of the empire, than door it ruins and destruction above all but the plague. In the 1708
Mantova it entered to at least make part of the Austrian empire and in part the resumed city its ancient splendor. The first domination Austrian lasted until the advent of the troops of
Napoleone, that I conquer the city and depredated it of important burlaps valuables. After its dead women and the return of the Austrian empire,
Mantova became of the points cardinals of the famous defensive quadrilateral. In the Italian state within making single part in 1866. Today
Mantova, administrative centre of province, is given over mainly to agriculture, even if conserve the fascination of the city of
Virgilio and the
Gonzaga.
